Tag Archives: women

For someone who likes observing the humans and the way they act and treat each other, Twitter has been quite the place to be recently. And like I mentioned to a couple other people I know… I realize that Twitter isn’t an accurate representation of the entire population of humans, but even with that understanding it’s still difficult for me to see so many people who operate so differently than I think people should.

Mainly what I’m talking about is people’s tendency to find a controversy, pick a side, jump to a conclusion that isn’t based in fact, logic, or critical thinking – and then scream and shout at other people who don’t share the exact same position as they do. Granted, I’m not exactly silent on a lot of issues – but I try to only speak from a position where I’ve educated myself on the topic, and saying things which (I believe) have facts and logic to back it all up. My problem: expecting the humans to function the same way, hoping that they can understand the difference between a fact and opinion or allegation.

Two “situations” where I’ve found myself trying to bring reason to conversations:

The allegations against Chris Hardwick by his former girlfriend Chloe Dykstra. She has accused him of psychological and sexual abuse during their relationship, and within days his various television shows have been shelved by AMC, his name was scrubbed from the Nerdist site that he founded, and he has lost future gigs hosting various things at different comic conventions.

Atari has started a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGogo to develop and create a new console called the Atari VCS… and there is a small but extremely vocal group of angry “game nerd” YouTube channels who are absolutely certain that the whole thing is a scam, and keep producing angry videos with all sorts of allegations – all in what seems to be an attempt to sabotage Atari’s console launch.

With Hardwick and Dykstra, I’m of the opinion that nobody knows what happened except for the two parties involved, so the public can’t come to a determination that’s anything more than just opinion or assumption. But on Twitter, there are thousands of posts from people who are loudly cheering that he’s lost his jobs and his reputation, despite the only “proof” being that an ex-girlfriend said some things.

These aren’t people who think that he did what she said. These are people that know, with absolute certainty, and aren’t hesitant to call him a monster and say that he’s getting exactly what he deserved. There’s a smaller group who are outright calling Dykstra a liar, and then there’s an even smaller group of folks like me who simply say that we hope that someone gets to the bottom of the situation based on the facts, and that it’s unfortunate that a man’s life is being destroyed based simply on an allegation.

For the people who are #MeToo activists, people who advocate that people “wait and see what the facts reveal” are the enemy. A majority of them make a comment supporting Dkystra, and then follow it up with “And I should know, because I’ve been through the same thing“ or something similar – showing that their view might be a little biased. Evidence is already popping up which conflicts with parts of her allegations, but hell… if he’s guilty, get him. But damn… the man has lost almost everything and has been declared a trash human by half of the internet – all because she said it was so.

With Atari, they put their crowdfunding campaign on IndieGogo, which doesn’t require a working prototype before funding can be solicited. But angry YouTubers are screaming “THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE A PRODUCT!” as if that’s something that should surprise anyone. Why would anyone expect them to have a nearly complete product, when that’s the point of raising the money? And Atari, for whatever reason, delayed the launch of their campaign once last year – which is another thing that the video creators say indicates a scam. As if no other successful products have ever had delays in their design or production.

What the problem actually is, is that these YouTube creators feel slighted by Atari. They feel that Atari owes it to them, to contact them and provide them more information, or answer the questions that they have about the project. Atari eventually got tired of being badmouthed by this small group of angry people and pushed back against what they were saying, which obviously hurt the feelings of these “reviewers” and caused them to make even more outlandish claims. Most of these angry folks haven’t even backed the project, nor do they intend to, but boy are they mad anyway – because how dare Atari not contact them directly and answer every damn question that they have.

Atari’s project already has nearly $3M in backing, so apparently there were plenty of people who felt like the information on the campaign page was enough. As with any hardware, it will obviously go through all sorts of slight changes before finalized, and people understand this. The angry YouTube mob is furious that Atari won’t give them more information, but why should they have to? If they’re already getting plenty of backers, and it’s obvious that speaking with the angry people won’t make a difference, why would they? Are these folks also screaming at Sony and Microsoft, demanding that they be given more about their next consoles in development?

But the more that these people shout “SCAM! DUMPSTER FIRE! FAKE! LIES!” in their videos, the more that their followers start to get nervous, and end up drinking the kool-aid and repeating the same claims that are being made in the angry videos. If the creator has 100k followers on YouTube, and is spouting whatever… there’s a good chance that their followers will start spouting the same thing in the comments and elsewhere, even if just to look like they “think just like a video creator who has 100k followers.” It’s toxic and sad.

So yeah… whether I’m trying to convince people that they should hold their venom for Hardwick until the claims against him have been proven, or if I’m pointing out that all of the “signs” that angry video creators are using against Atari are just normal things that happen in almost every crowdfunding campaign… people just continue to rage. You’re expected to either hate Dykstra or hate Hardwick. No middle ground. You’re supposed to accept that Atari is scamming $3M from people, and shouldn’t dare suggest that it might not be the case. Hardwick might be guilty, Atari’s console might be a flop or a scam… but people’s eagerness to convict others of this or that, with only assumptions or “feelings about it” to back it up… it’s just bizarre, and the amount of people getting caught up in it only seems to be growing.

I know, I shouldn’t bother… but I wanna believe that under the surface, people really are capable of unbiased, critical thinking – and I wanna say or do things that encourage that, or try to bring it out of them. Every now and then I might get one or two of ’em… heh… but not surprisingly, the irate people who claim their passion-filled opinions as fact just don’t seem interested in considering alternate views of a situation. 😏 It’s still my method of escapism though, for when I don’t feel like thinking about anything in my own life, in those moments that I’m sticking my nose into other people’s thoughts… so at least I’m getting a small benefit from it all, eh?

I was trying to avoid it, but I had to go in town today to hit the bank, the post office, and then the pharmacy… where I was able to pick up only one of my two meds. 😒 I’ve still got a few days before I’ll have to start worrying, so whatever, it should be alright. 🤷🏻‍♂️ But today… despite it being absolutely gorgeous outside… boy were the assholes out in force.

❌➖ Idiot children riding their bikes on Old Logan Rd, and purposely swerving into traffic to make cars have to hit their breaks or swerve themselves.

❌➖ Rubbernecking dipshits downtown, watching medics treat someone who had apparently passed out along the sidewalk, while pulling into and clogging the intersection when the traffic lights changed, due to everyone forgetting how to drive. 🙄

❌➖ At the pharmacy there was a mother standing in the same line as me, and she was letting her little boy run wild. 😠 Of course he eventually knocked over an entire display of reading glasses – then cried and screamed as she just stood there, telling him to pick them all up as he kept telling her “no.”

❌➖ As I was shopping there, an extra-large woman was blocking the aisle with her cart and her body, yet she let out an audible sigh when I said “Excuse me” as I waited to move my own cart past her. She could have just moved out of the way on her own, but I’m convinced that she wanted me to say something so she could then be mad about it. 😏

❌➖ A couple aisles later I encountered the same lady, continuing to use her fatness to block the entire aisle again, but she looked up and saw me coming – and she scowled as she got out of the way on her own before I reached her again.

❌➖ At the intersection of Ewing and Sugar Grove Rd there was a woman who had the “yield” sign didn’t but didn’t yield, but when she realized that she had made a mistake she just stopped in the middle of the damn road. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♂️ Right in everyone’s way, forcing people to swing extremely wide just to get around her until she finally moved again.

❌➖ Then on the way home, despite traveling 60 MPH myself, some jackass decided to zip around me so he could then ride the ass of another car farther in front of me, when he found himself stuck in a no-passing zone. 🏎💨 It didn’t bother me, but it was a dick move towards the car in front of me.

The lady who waited on me at the pharmacy was great, the guy that served me through the window at Rax was nice, and the cute girl at the drive-thru was friendly as well. I happened to be listening to Metallica when I pulled in, as was she there in the building, so she smiled and pointed out that she knows how to pick good music too. 😏

So, even though I listed all of those assholes and their asshole things, the trip in town was actually fine. I didn’t have to be anywhere urgently, none of what was happening was really affecting me, nor did I care to let it… but if it had been any other day, when I’d normally start off gritting my teefs before I even got in my car, then it may have been a different story. 🙂

Since I’ve taken the day off, I decided to pop over to Twitter to see if David Hogg and his anti-gun activism was still making any noise. And it is… although it’s become even more divisive, and is making even less sense. His current “thing” is to include “THE YOUNG PEOPLE WILL WIN” on almost everything that he posts. 😐 I suppose that’s an attempt to light a fire under their asses and make them feel special, but it’s also a great way to alienate everyone else from your cause. 🤨 (I often wonder if the other kids / leaders in their movement wish they had never included him, due to the drama he causes.)

Young people (18-25), just as with any demographic, do not all vote the same way. The majority of them don’t even vote at all. But the new mantra isn’t aimed at people who prefer to actually think about things. The mantra is aimed at idiots, and their replies don’t disappoint. 😏 I can’t tell you how many older Americans that I’ve seen posting replies about how their generation has let the youth down, how sorry they are for not creating a better world, how the young people are our only hope, and other similar bits of nonsense. 😣 These “self-hating adults (apologists)” who can’t wait to post and “confess” on the behalf of all adults, how awful “grown-ups” are… and ironically it’s usually the older white men who can’t stop talking about how older white men have fucked everything up. 😠 It’s truly bizarre.

In attempts to stay relevant (since he’s rarely able to get on TV anymore) Hogg will make often-incoherent posts about various Senate or House candidates and elections, which then get retweeted by his followers – without them even noticing when the posts make little to no sense. 🙄 Invariably there will be adults responding to those posts by asking Hogg how they should vote in this or that election. 😧 Yeah, don’t do any research on your own, because it’s always better to get your election advice from someone who uses words such as “dissagree, violance, and colledge” and still struggles with the whole “there / their / they’re” thing.

(As you can tell from the way they speak, these are obviously some top-notch interviewers)

I know, this whole post may seem petty or something that I shouldn’t even concern myself with… but it’s really just touching on the larger problem of how much “weaponized ignorance / stupidity” a person will be exposed to online, and especially on Twitter. 😒 It’s like the less sure a person is about what they’re saying, the more passionately they will say it, and the more angrily they will defend it.

It’s okay though, I’m sure “the young people” will save us all from all of that as well. 🙄🤦🏻‍♂️

It’s surreal what we’re getting to see from our government these days, and specifically from our President. Donald Trump, who has been caught on tape bragging about how he can (and does) sexually assault women, how he can’t even control himself or stop himself from doing it… the same man who has at least SIXTEEN different women who have accused him of sexual assault of one kind or another… again, this man is President of The United States… but there he is on Twitter, trolling Al Franken for taking an inappropriate photo with an allegedly sleeping woman – and giving him shit for lecturing other people on not being the type of person who sexually assaults someone.

I know, that’s a little hard to follow… but yeah, Donald Trump, proud sexual predator, focus of a dozen+ sexual assault claims including the alleged rape of a 13 y/o girl and the rape of his own wife – he’s lecturing another man accused of sexual assault, for lecturing others on sexual assault. I’m not joking when I say that this is legitimately making my brain hurt and my eye twitch.

I don’t know if Donald Trump forgets that he’s on tape bragging about how he grabs at women’s vaginas without consent, or if he remembers but just doesn’t care… but whatever is going on in that man’s head, there’s no doubt that he has some serious psychological problems. Perhaps he knows that some new information is coming down the pipe tomorrow, maybe regarding his son-in-law who was once again caught withholding Russian communications from the Senate – or perhaps it will be about his biological son, who was recently caught having secret communications with Wikileaks for months despite everyone in the administration denying it. And let’s not forget about Jeff Sessions and the perjury charges that he could be facing for the many lies that he has told congress.

Because if he didn’t tweet what he did in order to distract from any or all of those topics – then the man is simply psychologically damaged, because all that this is going to do is bring all of the negative attention back on him – along with reminding the world about all of the women who have made accusations against him. Oh… and it took him less than a day to tweet something inflammatory about (Democrat) Al Franken, when it has been more than a week since the (Republican) Roy Moore scandal came to light, which (instead of just being about a tasteless photo) includes allegations that Moore sexually assaulted a minor, otherwise known as child molestation. But of course Trump hasn’t said a word about that, and being the coward that he is – he wouldn’t say anything about Franken in front of reporters, but instead waited until he was back at home, sitting on the toilet, with his dick in one hand and his phone in the other. (How’s that for some mental imagery?)

Good lord… this is what we are now. This is what the world sees when they look to America as an example of how people and countries should be. It’s fucking disgraceful, and has me going from being completely speechless – to where all I want to do is rant about it, because it’s disgusting, shameful, and it makes me sad that kids growing up these days will think of this as the normal way that people in government function.

I’m honestly getting sick to my stomach as I type this… but this is our inescapable reality.

Woke up today and checked Twitter to discover that Republicans and Trump supporters are losing their damn minds over an incident that Senator Al Franken was involved in about a decade ago. People are calling him disgusting, repulsive, a predator, a monster, and of course – almost all of them are calling for his resignation. This is the “blood in the water” that folks on the right have been waiting for, and they’re going to attack whether it is justified or not. And just like the accusations against Trump and Moore, it’s not up to me to decide whether or not the claims are truthful.

But what I will say, is that two of the main complaints from Tweeden are that he kissed her – while rehearsing a scene from a USO skit where the two would be (you guessed it) kissing… and that he “groped her” while she was sleeping, with her evidence being a photo where he was cheezing for the camera and acting like he was going to grab her and startle her awake. It appears that he wasn’t even touching her flak jacket, let alone “groping her breasts in her sleep” as she claims.

If she was actually asleep, and he thought it would be funny to do that pose, then obviously, if the two weren’t the type of friends where goofy shit like this was the norm, it was a bad idea. I only say that because I know plenty of people who pull tasteless jokes and gags on each other, but it’s never more than just that… a joke. I’m sure that I’ve joked like I was going to grab someone’s ass, just as I’m sure that someone has joked the same way towards me. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that when Franken wanted to rehearse, her reply was “Okay, whatever.” Why is he the bad guy when the skit was written that way and she agreed to rehearse it?

But anyway… it’s not so much that I’m trying to excuse the behavior, it’s that I’m finding it hard to equate the things that Franken is alleged to have done to the things that Trump and Moore are alleged to have done. (And in Donald Trump’s case, bragged about doing.) The GOP pitchforks and torches are now out for Franken… meanwhile President Pussy Grabber is in office, and the wagons are being circled around Roy Moore in hopes to protect that senate seat. They are both accused of preying on women or girls (and many of them), getting them in situations where there were no people around, and then forcibly touching their genitals or otherwise molesting them. There was no skit that was being rehearsed, there were no cameras around to cheeze for, and if the allegations are true – you know exactly what Trump and Moore were doing to those women. I’m sorry, but that’s significantly different from rehearsing a scene that involved a kiss and then taking a dumb faux “grabby” pic that never went anything beyond that.

I understand that right now the politically correct thing to do is to always believe any accuser/victim that comes forward. Especially if many of them come forward about the same person. That’s the way it is, because you certainly don’t want to be the person that doubted the claims of someone if they end up being verified as true. And if you believe someone, and their claims end up being false, you still look good – giving someone the benefit of the doubt, and then having become a “victim” yourself for believing them and getting played. But when someone claims they were groped, and not because they know or remember that it happened, but because they saw a photo of someone pretending to sneak up and grab them – you can call it tasteless, but I don’t see how you can call it sexual assault. It lessens what those words means for the women (and men) who have been through much worse. And when you’re complaining that someone kissed you without your consent, you can’t then say that the kiss was part of a scene that you were rehearsing and that you agreed to that rehearsal.

I know, I should just keep my mouth shut about all this so I don’t offend anyone myself… but hell, everyone is offended by everything now – to the point where people are afraid to say or do anything because of the social shaming risk involved. I’m sure more info will come out about the Franken incident, and there have already been unconfirmed reports that Tweeden was “in on the photo” at the time, and that it was some gag that they mutually decided on. That’s scary if it ends up being true… and again, nobody likes to doubt a “victim” but there’s always a possibility that even if he wasn’t being set up at the time, since she’s a frequent guest of Sean Hannity (Fox News) – so it is possible that something relatively innocent is being turned into something much more sinister for political reasons.

People really need to stop forming their beliefs based on political affiliation though. Investigate every one of these incidents that have happened, and punish people accordingly if the facts call for it. If you’re a Republican and you haven’t been outspoken about the allegations against Trump and Moore, then take it down a few notches with all of your outrage against Al Franken. And if you’re on the left and you’ve been vocal about Trump and Moore, you can’t just ignore the incident with Franken. And whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or whatever… you have to acknowledge that every “case” isn’t the same, that none of these things are black and white, and they can’t be treated as if there should be a “one size fits all” way of handling them. And you have to understand that if these folks truly believe that they’re not guilty, they are going to take a stand against the accusations – just as anyone would do if they were being falsely accused. It looks awful if you don’t believe them, but what choice do they have?

I probably wouldn’t have even bothered making this entry if it wasn’t for the dozens and dozens of sanctimonious politician assholes that are speaking out about Franken, with all of their hyperbole and incredulousness – as if all of them have been 100% straight shooters their entire lives, and have never done anything that someone might find objectionable. The “holier than thou” bullshit that everyone sees for what it is, just another way to further their party and agenda. It’s all fucking sickening.

But yeah, investigate the Franken thing… and investigate the Trump and Moore accusations with just as much enthusiasm. Let the chips fall where they may with any/all of the people who appear to have been caught doing whatever sketchy thing that they’ve been accused of – and if the facts dictate that they be punished, let the punishment fit the actions regardless of political party. Fuck… nobody should even have to say that last part, but sadly it does need to be said.